The Trump administration's approach to post-Maduro Venezuela has revealed the true calculus of great power intervention. Following the January 3 capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces, Washington now finds itself threatening and simultaneously relying on the very security apparatus it spent years condemning. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello—a hardline regime loyalist under U.S. indictment—has been put on notice that he could face Maduro's fate unless he helps interim President Delcy Rodriguez meet American demands and maintain order. This isn't policy incoherence. It's the logic of resource acquisition stripped of democratic pretense.
The arrangement exposes what drives intervention when rhetorical commitments to democracy collide with material interests. Venezuela possesses the world's largest proven oil reserves, and the administration has publicly demanded the country turn over 30-50 million barrels with proceeds controlled by Trump himself. To secure this and stabilize extraction infrastructure, Washington needs enforcers who command loyalty from security forces and can prevent the chaos that would disrupt oil flows. The administration's choice reveals its assessment: Maduro's former inner circle offers more utility than the internationally recognized opposition.
The Cabello paradox: threatening the enforcer you need
Diosdado Cabello represents the central contradiction in this strategy. As interior minister, he controls Venezuela's domestic security apparatus—the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN), police forces, and the network of colectivos that have historically suppressed dissent. He is also under U.S. indictment for narcotics trafficking and has spent years as a symbol of regime brutality. Now Washington is attempting to leverage him through threat of capture while counting on him to prevent the security vacuum that could follow Maduro's removal.
This is transactional coercion masquerading as strategy. The administration calculates that Cabello, facing the prospect of sharing Maduro's cell, will recognize that cooperation with Rodriguez and compliance with U.S. demands offers his only path to political survival. The implicit bargain is clear: deliver stability, suppress resistance to the new arrangement, and facilitate U.S. economic access, or face military detention.
Yet this approach assumes Cabello has more to gain from submission than resistance. He commands significant institutional loyalty and could credibly threaten to destabilize Rodriguez's interim government if Washington moves against him. The administration is essentially gambling that the threat of capture outweighs his capacity to make Venezuela ungovernable—a wager that depends on continued U.S. military presence and Cabello's belief that no alternative power center will protect him. If he calls the bluff, Washington's broader Venezuela strategy risks unraveling.
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Stability through coercion: the risks accumulate
The immediate objective is transparent: secure oil flows and prevent Venezuela from becoming a failed state that generates migration crises and expands Chinese or Russian influence in the hemisphere. The administration has demanded crackdowns on drug trafficking, revitalization of oil infrastructure for U.S. companies, and expulsion of Cuban and Iranian advisors. These are classic client state prerequisites, and the new government is expected to deliver them while maintaining enough order to keep production running.
But the approach carries compounding risks. Cabello and other security chiefs retain independent power bases and could fracture from Rodriguez if they judge that U.S. protection is unreliable or that resistance offers better survival odds. The strategic incoherence of simultaneously threatening and depending on the same actors creates inherent instability. Meanwhile, sidelining Machado alienates the segment of Venezuelan society that opposes both Maduro and his former lieutenants, potentially fueling long-term insurgency.
The precedent is equally consequential. Washington has demonstrated that sanctions and indictments are negotiable when resource access is at stake, and that great powers will empower sanctioned officials if they prove more useful than democrats. This lesson will not be lost on other regimes facing U.S. pressure or on rival powers constructing their own spheres of influence.
Venezuela is now a test case for whether a major power can rapidly install a functional client government by co-opting an adversary's security apparatus. The outcome will reveal whether short-term resource extraction justifies the legitimacy costs and long-term governance risks. What is already clear is that democratic transition was never the objective—only the rhetoric required to justify intervention. The policy is coherent only when understood as pure interest maximization unencumbered by the values it claims to promote.
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